More details are emerging in the mysterious death of former Atlanta Hawks player Lorenzen Wright.

According to online reports, Wright’s body was found “riddled with bullets” in a wooded area in Southeast Memphis Wednesday afternoon. According to 730 Fox Sports in Memphis, the 34-year-old was shot at least a dozen times and possibly as many as 18 times.

The street near where Wright was found was often used as a shortcut to his mother’s house not far from FedEx’s world headquarters. His mother reported him missing on July 22.

Wright’s friends questioned why police didn’t do more to investigate a 911 call from Wright’s cell phone in the early morning hours of July 19, when he was last seen alive. They wonder if police dropped the ball.

All week long police said they had no indication of foul play in Wright’s disappearance. So when did police become aware of the 911 call with sounds of multiple gunshots in the background?

The Commercial Appeal newspaper, which first reported the call, said a dispatcher in the suburb of Germantown heard a garbled male voice say an expletive and then at least 10 gunshots. The call went dead and no one answered when the dispatcher called back, the newspaper reported.

In the hours before his death, a woman dropped Wright off at a Memphis restaurant. Later that day he turned up unannounced at his ex-wife’s home where he checked on his six children. Wright had plans to drive his kids to an Atlanta suburb on July 19.

The 6-foot-11 Wright spent two years as a star center at Memphis before entering the NBA draft as a top 10 draft pick in 1996.

Like most young gifted athletes, Wright was lured into a professional basketball career by the promise of big money, expensive clothes, cars and women. In his 13 years with the NBA, Wright played for five NBA teams, including the Memphis Grizzlies, Atlanta Hawks and the Cleveland Cavaliers.

According to the AJC: “the Memphis Commercial Appeal reported his custom-built 17-room home in Eads, Tenn., was repossessed in May for $1.3 million, and that his Atlanta house was repossessed in January for $1.1 million.”

Although he never lived up to the billing of a top 10 pick, Wright carved out a niche that enabled him to make over $55 million dollars over his NBA career, and he never hesitated to give back to his hometown.

During his first of three NBA stints in Atlanta, Wright, Penny Hardaway and two other Memphis-area NBA players (Todd Day and Elliot Perry) furnished $10,000 to Travis Butler, a 9-year-old boy who lived with his mother’s corpse for a month out of fear he would be put in foster care if anyone found out she was dead.

“To end his career and his life like this here in some woods, that’s not good,” friend Stan McKinley said. “You don’t do a dog like this. It’s just a really sad day for the city as a whole.” [link]

Soulja Boy rocked his $2,500 white leather Louis Stewart Jet Pack to his 21st Live Pay Per View Birthday Bash at The Highlands club in the Hollywood & Highland Center last night in Hollywood, California.

The Jet Pack is the newest edition to the Louis Stewart Collection and is available for custom order in a variety of colors and skins.

According to loyal reader Roger Moore from the UK, he follows both Khalil and an actor named Merwin Mondesir (pictured above left) on Facebook. Roger told me in an email that Merwin put Khalil on full blast on Facebook.

Let’s get this part out of the way first: yes, Merwin is out and proud. Some of you may know him as ‘Dre’ the bartender on the cancelled Noah’s Arc, cable TV’s first series with an all-gay cast.

Are you sitting down? Apparently, that foine azz Khalil is teh ghey. I know how you ladies feel about Khalil and I sympathize with you.

It probably wasn’t a good idea for this Cleveland couple to wear their LeBron James Miami Heat jerseys to a Yankees game in Cleveland last night. When they showed up at the stadium in their Heat attire, a mob formed and the couple were quickly escorted out of the ballpark by police before any violence ensued.

Update:

My bad. After reviewing the tape I see that the guy’s gilfriend was wearing a Cleveland Indians jersey, not a Miami Heat jersey like her boyfriend.

Yes, this is still a free country where you can wear a jersey expressing your favorite team, but common sense should have prevailed. They should have known that LeBron is still a sensitive subject inside the Cleveland city limits.

JET magazine takes us on an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the JET photo shoot at T.I.’s posh mansion in Jonesboro, just minutes from Atlanta. T.I. and Tiny will take their vows before friends and family in Miami this weekend. It should be nice.

The current issue of JET with T.I. on the cover will be on newsstands August 2nd!

U.S. president Barack Obama appeared on ‘The View’ and promptly stirred up a hornet’s nest of controversy when he referred to blacks as “a sort of mongrel people.”

For those who aren’t familiar with the term: a mongrel is a type of dog that is considered undesirable among breeders because its breed can not easily be determined.

It is highly insulting to refer to human beings as mongrels.

President Obama waded into the national race debate in an unlikely setting and with an unusual choice of words: telling daytime talk show hosts that African-Americans are “sort of a mongrel people.”

The president appeared on ABC’s morning talk show “The View” Thursday, where he talked about the forced resignation of Agriculture Department official Shirley Sherrod, his experience with race and his roots.

When asked about his background, which includes a black father and white mother, Obama said of African-Americans: “We are sort of a mongrel people.”

“I mean we’re all kinds of mixed up,” Obama said. “That’s actually true of white people as well, but we just know more about it.” Read More…

Rihanna’s teh ghey “eyelash designer” Ja’Maal Buster uploaded this Twitpic of himself and his client RiRi modeling one his creations on the set of a Doritos commercial. And here we thought Rihanna’s career was slowly fading. Photo: Rihanna Daily

Rapper 50 Cent was among the celebs attending the “Twelve” premiere at the Landmark Sunshine Theatre in New York City last night. Fiddy attended the event with a brown skin shawty.